I Led The Anti-War Movement Against George W. Bush 11 Years Ago. Hillary Clinton Is Hardly Better by Cindy Sheehan

I Led The Anti-War Movement Against George W. Bush. 11 Years Ago. Hillary Clinton Is Hardly Better

by

Cindy Sheehan

(First appeared in Independent Journal Review)

On August 3rd, 2005, I was at my home in Vacaville, Ca (still in deep
pain from the murder of my son Casey in Iraq) watching some news
broadcast or other. Lo and behold, my then-nemesis George W. Bush came
on. He was, once again, on vacation at his pig ranch in Crawford, but
this day he was somewhere else in Texas. That day, 11 Marines from the
same reserve unit in Ohio were killed in the same incident in Iraq. Bush
was asked about that and he said, “The families of the fallen can rest assured their loved ones died for a noble cause.”

Of
course, since my son Casey had died in the long line of Imperial wars
based on lies and for profit, my ears pricked up. George was clearly at a
press availability, so I waited for someone from the “press” (really,
White House stenographers) to ask him what the “Noble Cause” was, since
the mission-lie had already changed several times. Predictably, not one
of the stenographers asked George that question.

The very next day, I was scheduled to go to Dallas, Texas to
participate in the annual Veterans for Peace convention. At that point, I
had a brainstorm: After I give my speech in Dallas at the VFP
conference on August 5th, why don’t I drive to Crawford (at that point I
didn’t even know where Crawford was in relation to Dallas—Texas is one
big-ass state) and try to demand a meeting with George to ask him “What
Noble Cause” myself?

On Saturday morning, August 6th, from the VFP
convention, we loaded up a bus owned by a member of VFP that had
"IMPEACH BUSH" painted in huge letters on its side, and had a caravan of
cars follow us to make the approximately three hour drive from Dallas
down to Crawford.

Joining
me on the bus were members of Vietnam Vets Against the War, Vets for
Peace, and Iraq Vets Against the War and another Gold Star Families for
Peace (GSFP) who had come up from Houston to support us, Amy Branham. We
were giddily apprehensive and we had no idea what to expect. The day
before, one of the founders of the Crawford Peace House, Hadi Jawad, had
asked me what I had planned to do if Bush refused to meet with me. I
answered, "I hadn't thought about that, but I guess I will just sit on
the side of the road and refuse to move until he agrees to meet with
me."

I will never forget Hadi's response to me: "Wow, that's an action." And it did turn out to be quite an “action."

When
I look back on that summer, I have many, many, many fond memories. It
was the first major post-9/11 "occupy," after all. People flocked from
all over the country (and world) to come to that bump in the road to be
in solidarity with us. If they couldn't come, they held rallies and
camps in their own neck of the woods. One couple drove down from
Wisconsin just to meet me and give us a donation - they turned around
and went right back.

There were bad things, though, too: I was
either viciously attacked (for example, Glenn Beck called me a "tragedy
pimp") or put on a pedestal (for example, Maureen Dowd wrote in the NY
Times that I had the "absolute moral authority.") Both of these extremes
were undeserved. I was simply a mom from California who wanted a simple
question answered. I wanted the truth, and here in the US, that is
extra-ordinary, but I wasn't an extra-ordinary person.

I hated
having my life being put under a microscope, especially when I was going
through a separation and eventual divorce at the time, which was a
deeply personal thing and never should have been fodder used to demonize
me. If every woman going through a divorce was demonized in this
country, that would be a profitable industry, wouldn't it?

Since
Bush has left office (in the orderly and lawful way, not in handcuffs)
and we're almost through with the two-terms of the current War
President, I almost feel sorry for Bush. (Almost, I said). Where's the
outcry against Obama's wars? The occupy movement did not address these
issues. I have tried to hold three protest camps since Obama has been
president. Instead of thousands of people, there were tens in
attendance.

The current POTUS electoral circus we find ourselves
in is interesting only for the fact that this is truly the weirdest
election I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. While Donald Trump’s
rhetoric is being scrutinized and analyzed, Hillary Clinton’s actual
record of support for war, war, and more war, has been sanitized. The
“super-star” of 2016, Bernie Sanders, had a very weak foreign policy
position, too. This sadly tells me that my fellow Americans' compassion
for others is practically non-existent.

I would hate to think the
only thing Camp Casey accomplished was getting the left-wing of the war
party back in political power. I think we did re-shape the dialogue and
perceptions of war. With many vets and other family members joining me
that summer, people in the US were seeing, for the first time this
generation, active family opposition to the institutions that steal our
young people to kill and die in the wars for profit of today's Military
Industrial Complex.

4 comments:

I think the pedestal thing come fromYour willingness to think and feel simultaneously at a time when that was agonizing and courageous. Also you just felt your way through it all instead of having an agenda to force through- unheard of really. You're still a huge inspiration to me and so is Dede and I love you both very very much

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